Techmeme keeps up with lightning-fast tech news

Published 4:00 am, Monday, September 27, 2010

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Techmeme website founder Gabe Rivera works in his home office in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 17, 2010 and will add a fourth computer monitor to his array soon. Rivera's technology news aggregator site celebrated its fifth anniversary earlier this month. less

Techmeme website founder Gabe Rivera works in his home office in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 17, 2010 and will add a fourth computer monitor to his array soon. Rivera's technology news aggregator ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Techmeme keeps up with lightning-fast tech news

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In the five years since Gabe Rivera founded Techmeme, the speed and volume of technology news has increased dramatically.

And that's helped the San Francisco firm's website become the go-to place for the technorati. It uses a computer algorithm refined by human editing to present a quick read of the hottest, most relevant technology stories culled from hundreds of sources across the Internet.

"Techmeme is a map of all the significant industrywide stories and major commentary on those stories," Rivera said during a recent interview. "It's also a way to identify what's missing from the coverage of the day. In some ways, it's an assignment desk for a lot of reporters."

Although it doesn't draw a huge audience, Techmeme.com is known as a daily must-see for top executives like Mark Cuban and influential tech journalists like Michael Arrington who want to keep connected to the ever-changing tech buzz.

"Where do tech journalists go to read tech journalism? Techmeme doesn't offer any original content, but it offers a well curated aggregation of some of the best industry coverage the Web has to offer," according to PC Magazine, which ranked it as one of its top 100 sites of 2010.

And Rivera says he knows of some high-profile tech blogs that offer "Techmeme bonuses" if their stories get on the site.

"I think it forces them to write better and be more interesting," Rivera said.

As he spoke, Rivera, 37, frequently glanced at his three desktop monitors to keep track of the headline links on his site, his e-mail and news sites. He had just ordered a fourth monitor for the tri-level apartment near Mission Bay that also serves as Techmeme's headquarters.

As someone who tracks tech news, Rivera has witnessed the way hundreds of online news sites and blogs are now dictating tech news coverage. Techmeme's list of top 100 news sources includes traditional media outlets, but also sites that focus on specific industries or companies, such as AppleInsider.com and AllFacebook.com.

Blogs changed rules

"In technology coverage, what happened was blogging," he said. "And the best bloggers got readers, which encouraged more bloggers to emulate them. And it just added pressure for everyone to become better and faster. A lot of the characteristics of blogs made their way into more established media sites, even as some of the larger blogs became more like mainstream media. And mainstream media got a lot more bloggier."

That river of tech news is raging.

"Now people post breaking news within minutes," he said. "They'll just put something out and then refine the post as more details become available and as they get a chance to write more."

'Unfinished product'

The expectations of readers have also evolved because "they know blog posts are an unfinished product," he said.

Online readers also expect opinion mixed in with their news, he said. That might seem like an anathema for journalists steeped in traditions of objectivity, but Rivera said online readers want more and are "smart enough to know that these are opinions."

Opinions clarify

"When the pundits incorporate their opinions into their writing, I think it actually has a clarifying effect," Rivera said. "It's adding information. Leaving out the opinion eliminated too much context. Striving for objectivity caused a lot of supporting ideas to be left out of tech reporting."

And, he said, tech coverage has become better and more interesting, although "I think people are so focused on being first that sometimes they're flat out wrong."

With the stream of tech news shifting to the Web, he said traditional media sources "can aspire to fit into that flow, but I think it'll be really hard for all theses newspapers across the country to be the front page to their readers for anything other than local (news)."

Editors refine choice

Techmeme's newsgathering algorithm generates more than half of the headlines found on the site, but Rivera and four editors refine those computerized selections to focus on stories that are well-written and understandable.

"Techmeme isn't always who reported it first," he said. "For the bigger stories, we tend to highlight conflicting points of view. You'll see on certain days two opposing headlines battling it out."

The company - which has six employees and celebrated its fifth anniversary on Sept. 12 - makes money from sponsored posts on the site and is profitable. Rivera said that, according to Google Analytics, the site drew 293,551 unique visitors in the past month, although Internet measurement service ComScore Inc. said Techmeme had 44,000 unique visitors in August.

Political site

Techmeme, which started as Techmemorandum, has also ventured beyond its tech focus. The company also operates Memeorandum, an aggregation of political stories. That site has a "good-sized audience, but it runs fully on auto pilot. I think we could do a better job with it," Rivera said.

In March, Techmeme started Mediagazer, which he said is gaining an audience among media industry professionals. One venture that hasn't been successful is a little-known baseball news aggregation site called Ballbug. Rivera said it has a "couple thousand" loyal readers and is often used to test changes being made to the main site.

'Overtures'

Still, Rivera said, he is looking to create other industry-specific sites in the future.

Rivera has received "overtures" from major Internet companies interested in buying Techmeme, although "I never got to the point where I'm sitting across the table from anyone talking about amounts."

But he's not looking to sell.

"I'm still figuring it out," he said. "I still don't know what the main trajectory of this thing will look like. I would like to see that develop unimpeded without direction from above."

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